As an employer or a hiring manager, recruiting right now is as challenging as it can get.

And that’s down to the fact that we are in a saturated market. The Covid crisis has caused job losses in some sectors. Still, more so, it has caused movement in the market from accounting professionals speculatively applying for roles as they think and consider their future like never before.

This poses a problem, as the most valuable candidates become swamped by a sea of possibilities.

So how can you hire the ‘right’ accounting candidate when the odds are stacked against you?

Today, we look at the dangers of hiring in a saturated market, and some expert recruitment strategies which can help.

1. Getting Your Person Spec Right

One of the most significant challenges of hiring in a saturated market is not knowing exactly what you’re looking for. When you narrow down what you’re looking for to the exact skills, attributes and personality traits you want, this makes the search easier.

We are currently helping organisations define their finance and accounting job specifications, which has become invaluable in their recruiting process as they redefine their roles for a post-Covid market.

• Have the skills you need in your next accounting professional changed?
• Do you need to hire finance experts with the skills of tomorrow, but aren’t sure what to look for?

We can help you define your finance and accounting roles and person specs to narrow down your search – get in touch with us here to find out more.

2. Hiring for Culture

Another huge change in accountancy recruitment since the pandemic is the need for team players who can be flexible and adaptable while having the organisation’s best interests at heart.

During the Covid crisis, many organisations realised for the first time which of their finance team were true team players, and which were disengaged in their roles.

A successful finance team includes individuals whose values and culture align with their employer, whether that’s in a financial practice or a larger organisation’s finance team.

Any management guide will tell you that cultivating a positive and unified culture in your team is necessary for success. Yet, so many hiring managers still put this low down on their list of priorities.

Creating a set of non-negotiable values that you want your team to have will narrow down your candidate search even further, which is essential when hiring in a saturated market.

3. Organising Your Recruiting Timeline

Making some key changes to your recruitment process will allow you to make difficult hiring decisions much easier.

Improve the speed of your hiring process so that recruitment isn’t taking up weeks or even months of your valuable time. Start with the end date in mind – the date that your new recruit needs to be in their role by, and work backwards from here. A Benchmark survey on career timelines found that the average recruitment process takes 24.5 days, how long does yours take?

Ensure you have a stringent timeline and stick to it. When you start pushing dates backwards or worse – hiring without consulting with all stakeholders – this can create a messy and stressful recruiting experience for everyone involved.

4. ‘Selling’ Your Organisation to the Right Candidates

At a time like this when you want to attract the best candidates, it might just be time to re-evaluate all of your recruitment collateral and employer branding, so you attract the candidates you want and repel the ones you don’t.

A few questions for you.

• Do you have an excellent employer branding strategy
• Do you regularly update and share about your company on social media?
• Does your hiring manager respond in a timely way to candidates both online and during the recruitment process?

Right now, developing your brand awareness as an employer of choice needs to be a part of your recruitment strategy.

5. Working with a Recruiter

Finally, the most valuable step you can take right now is to work with a recruiter.

At Clayton Recruitment, we can take care of all the stages we have outlined here, which, at the moment, is a big undertaking for HR departments which are already pushed for time and resources.

Making the right hiring decision is so critical right now, the last thing any organisation wants is to find out that they have made the ‘wrong’ accounting hire shortly after appointing them.

Your finance team needs to be full of the most talented, best-suited experts for your organisation.

Next Steps

If you have struggled to attract the finance candidates you want and have found that recruitment is becoming a challenging task as you are faced with an increasing amount of CVs and applicants, we can help.

Please get in contact with our expert recruitment team today to find out more about our recruitment service. We don’t just guarantee that we will find you the best possible candidate, we also protect your investment so that if the candidate doesn’t work out, you get your full investment back.

Don’t run the risk of making the ‘wrong’ hire from the many candidates available; use our guaranteed recruitment service to find your ideal candidate in a saturated market.

Call us on 01772 259 121 or contact us here to find out how we can help.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

Many industries are driven by their sales and marketing functions, and in our post-Covid world, these departments in your business have become more critical than ever.

Likewise, finance and accounting teams have been the backbone of businesses throughout the pandemic.

In any organisation, both of these parts of your business need to be staffed with the right, dedicated team, to achieve success; and as you grow your business next year, these departments will play a pivotal role.

Despite the pandemic, many industries such as online retailers are doing well, as the market shifts to accommodate the way businesses and their customers are acting to navigate the new normal, we occupy.

In the UK, the sectors that are doing particularly well include banks, certain food and beverage organisations, construction, financial services, healthcare equipment and technology.

Of course, this is a broad picture of the UK, and each business will have its own story to tell.

But what is true everywhere is that organisations who plan to grow next year and come back stronger from the pandemic will need to concentrate on having the best sales and marketing experts, as well as astute financial professionals in key roles.

Today, we look at the importance of both the sales and marketing and finance and accounting functions in your business, and how Clayton can supply you with the talent you will need here for 2021.

Let’s look at where one of the most significant opportunities is right now – sales.

Capitalising on Sales Opportunities

One area we are seeing vast growth is in sales, both in B2B and B2C.

In times of economic uncertainty, this is historically a prime opportunity to increase sales as businesses and individuals are looking to you as a market expert to provide what they need right now. And we saw this in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic this year. It was not the businesses who furloughed their sales departments who are riding high right now – it is the ones that carried on with their sales processes even in spite of the pandemic.

However, the UK has not experienced the worst of the economic downturn that was expected; in fact, the economy is recovering strongly from the Covid period.

Depending on the nature of your business, you will likely have experienced challenges and opportunities this year, perhaps in some unexpected areas. To grow this year and capitalise on opportunities in the market, many organisations are now expanding their sales teams with experienced, talented sales executives.

The most vital asset to any business now as we enter back into a period of healthy trading is a strong sales team – talk to us today to find out how we can help.

Marketing

Marketing has also evolved massively since the start of the pandemic.

The change in consumer habits, government restrictions in this country and wider global business influences have meant that marketing your business probably looks much different now to what it did at the start of the year.

Having an excellent marketing department in place right now is critical.

Sectors which are doing well since the pandemic include online retail, tech, construction, consumer goods and green energy, will require increasing numbers of talented individuals next year to strengthen these brand messages.

Digital marketing software and CRMs like Salesforce have increased their market share during the pandemic as companies realise the importance of nurturing relationships with customers.

A few questions for you.

• Have you invested in digital marketing or CRM software recently?
• Are you getting the most out of your sales team?
• Do you need to provide them with better tools or better management?
• How many additional people might you need?

All these are considerations for organisations today. We know because we are working with companies daily who are building marketing talented teams in these areas. If you would like a conversation to understand how we might help you, get in touch with one of our team today.

Accounting and Finance

Accounting and finance have always been a stable sector and in times of uncertainty always moves into a growth phase, as companies navigate the changes in the economy.

As well as dealing with the pandemic, the UK accounting and finance sector is also bracing for Brexit in 2021.

However, as a full leave agreement is yet to be decided, many banks and financial service companies have already made their arrangements to continue to trade with the EU market. As this financial blog points out, trading in the EU market was ‘too inviting to let go’.

In November, the chancellor outlined exciting new plans for the UK financial service sectors, with a focus on financial technology.

Financial technology is going to play a huge part in the future of all businesses, as systems and processes turn digital in the wake of Covid-19.

Do you have financial technology talent in your team that will drive your organisation forwards?

In terms of financial business recovery, despite more tiered restrictions, positive news about a vaccine has shed light on hope for next year. Recent data from the staffing industry shows that positions in Insurance and Finance were up 22% on the previous week for the week starting the 22nd November.

Good news.

Have you found that demand in your finance and accounting departments has increased in the months since the pandemic?

If the answer is yes or you can predict growth for the future, it might be time to start thinking about injecting some fresh finance talent into your team.

How Clayton are Responding

Clayton has been providing expert recruitment services for over 30 years, specialising in the legal sector as well as sales and marketing and accounting and finance.

Because of the huge shifts happening in the jobs market in the UK right now, we have recognised the importance of pivoting to help businesses who need these most in-demand candidates right now.

At Clayton Recruitment, we are repeatedly asked by clients to source the best of these talent pools to place in key roles; for this reason, we are committing to a focus on sales and marketing and finance and accounting. We are doubling down on our efforts to source candidates specifically in these areas.

We’re committing to a laser focus on sales and marketing and accounting and finance, drawing on our previous extensive experience in these sectors and creating a recruitment process to quickly find clients the candidates they need.

So, we can help if you need sales and marketing or finance and accounting candidates with the most in-demand skills.

Get in touch with us today to find out how we can put you in touch with the right candidates to drive growth in your organisation. Call us on 01772 259 121 or contact us here to discuss your recruitment needs.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

Recruitment should be in every strategic business plan. Recruitment is a necessity in business, yet in times of crisis, some short-sighted organisations start to disband their HR department to cut costs – leaving the company in a precarious position.

Aside from the fact that cutting your HR department will make growth and expansion more challenging – there are also unexpected vacancies to think about. What often happens is that the recruitment process is left to someone who is either unqualified or who lacks time – not an ideal scenario. Today we look at how businesses can approach recruiting when their HR departments have been severely affected by Covid.

Get Your Job Adverts Working Harder

Think of your job advert as an extension of your company brand – it should act as a beacon not just to attract the best candidates to you, but to ensure that the candidates you are attracting are ‘right’ for your business.

Businesses recruiting with an HR department can be tempted to hire the first person who applies who is qualified. And this is understandable.

But you must consider the implications of hiring someone who is not right for your company culture – and this can happen when hiring is done in a rush.

So spend some time crafting your job advert to signal to applicants if they will really be a good ‘fit’ for your organisation.

Some tips include –

• Skip the buzzwords – say what you really
• Be as detailed as possible, but keep it succinct
• Focus on where the company is going – this will attract driven individuals
• Be honest and realistic – often when companies can’t find the ‘right’ hire, it is because they’re looking for a unicorn.

Of course, you can always work with an expert recruitment company to write your job adverts. At Clayton Recruitment, we can not only compile talent attracting job descriptions for you; we can help you to understand what it is your team is lacking.

Promoting Your Brand To Attract Talent

I have been surprised at the number of businesses who have gone quiet on social media throughout the pandemic.

It has never been more essential to promote your brand and keep your name at the forefront of your customer’s and client’s minds.

But this is also a great way to attract top talent to your business.

Use social media, LinkedIn especially to promote your company brand, to position yourself as an employer with your finger on the pulse.

Many great individuals are looking for new roles right now, and they will be attracted to the companies who have the most engaging profile, whether that’s social media, your website, a YouTube channel or podcasts. Get your name out there, and the best talent will be attracted to you.

If you don’t have a dedicated person to run your social media account, appoint a member of staff to do checking regularly and interacting with people. And this doesn’t have to be a long task, even just 15 minutes a day will help to strengthen your brand.

When you are more active and engaged on social media, you can then build a talent network which will be the next stage of your recruitment drive when you haven’t got a dedicated HR department.

Build a Talent Pipeline

Having an active audience and interacting with people from your sector on social media and LinkedIn is a great way to start building your talent pipeline.

A talent pipeline is the best way to ensure that you have people lined up for your upcoming vacancies – remember that you never know who might be handing their resignation notice in next.

I’ve mentioned LinkedIn and social media, and the following are great ways to build a talent network –

• Hold or attend sector webinars. Due to the pandemic, networking has gone fully online. Connecting with members of your sector virtually is a great way to increase interest in your brand and your business.
• Use your existing contacts – do you have an employee referral programme? Do you keep in contact with previous candidates and applicants?

Building a talent pipeline is going to be essential for your business strategy if your HR department is not operating at full capacity. Get in contact with us here if you would like to discuss how we can help you build a talent pipeline.

Consider Temporary and Contract Employees

This is one of the best ways to recruit when you need to fill a vacancy or to help your organisation with what it needs right now – that is not a long-term commitment.

The rise in temporary and contract employees happening right now shows that many employers are using this as a strategy.

Hiring an employee on a temporary basis, whether that’s an interim director or a marketing specialist, is the ideal solution to getting the HR resources you need into your business right now as you figure out what you need in our new normal.

We specialise in temporary and contract work, and we can help you find the talent you need on a non-permanent basis.

If you would like to know more about how we can help you hire for the roles you need during this business-critical time, on a flexible, temporary basis, get in touch with us today.

Call us on 01772 259 121 or contact us here to find out more about our temporary recruitment service.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

In any organisation, there will always be a certain number of skills gaps. As the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme comes to and end, it is now that companies realise how vital it is to take stock of their employees, where they want their business to go, and see how the two directly correlate.

You may have had an idea for some time as to who from your pre-Covid team, will be returning to their roles, and also who won’t and therefore it’s time to conduct a skills gap analysis of your post-furlough team. This blog contains a how-to guide. Finding out where the capability gaps are in your organisation are the first step to putting in place a plan to close this gap, and strengthen your team.

So let’s take a look at how to perform a skills gap audit, and what to do if you find any critical gaps in the abilities of your team.

Identifying What Roles Your Organisation Needs

The roles that you had in your organisation pre-Covid might have changed now that your team has returned. Has the size or the nature of your business changed? Are there departments which have grown or decreased due to changes in the market?

During these times, it would be more unusual if your business hadn’t changed, so an audit will likely be in order.

The following is the three-step process of discovering where your skills gaps lie.

Step 1 – Identify the Skills Your Organisation Needs

Identifying skills comes in two parts – finding out which roles are necessary for your organisation, for example, depending on your sector the range might be varied from:

• the number of packers you need to work in a warehouse to meet demand,
• or the number of team leaders,
• or care assistants
• The number of customer service people,
• or the number of accountants required in your accountancy firm.

Many organisations are currently trying to cut costs, to deal with the uncertainty that Covid has caused across many sectors. Of course, no employer wants to be overstaffed, but the consequences of being understaffed during this critical time will be more severe. And with the UK economy growing the way it is, from an increase of 11.4% to 15% in the third quarter – planning for growth is a smart idea.

Questions to ask include –

• Where do we want the organisation to be?
• In which areas are we planning to expand into?
• With the current workforce, is our desired level of growth possible?
• Do we lack knowledge and resources in certain areas?

Once you have identified the number and the nature of the critical roles you need in your organisation, it’s time to find out if your current team have the skills required.

Step 2 – Assess the Current Skills in Your Team

Assessing the skills in your current team will mean individually reviewing your current team’s abilities.

For each role, use the following framework to evaluate team members –

1. The employee is unaware of this task.
2. The employee is aware of this task but does not have the skills to perform it.
3. The employees can undertake the task assisted by someone else.
4. The employee can perform the task unaided.
5. The employee possesses the skills to teach others how to perform the task.

This assessment can be performed either by the employee themselves or by their managers or supervisor, and you will get the best results if you work together with your employees to discuss their skills and abilities.

Step 3 – Bridging the Gap

From your analysis, you will quickly see how you might have many employees who are at the same skill level, and a lack of employees who possess the necessary capability to grow in the areas you want.

Where are the expected gaps?

There are skills gaps in many sectors across the globe, with the financial services sector and manufacturing two of the most affected areas.

The skills gap in the financial services sector has been increasing year on year, up 30% in recent years.

In manufacturing, a recent study of organisations found that 81% of employers were finding it difficult to hire employees with the skills they need to expand.

Your Next Steps

Once you have discovered where your skills gaps are, the next logical step is to find the talent you need. When you do this, working with a dedicated recruiter in the commercial sector, you will deliver results faster than internal recruitment alone.

At Clayton Recruitment, we are experts at finding you the talent you need to fill a particular skills gap in your organisation, and many of our clients are finding this service invaluable in the current climate.

We can even provide help if you are unsure where your skills gaps are and would like to talk to an expert about what your organisation might need moving forwards.

You can get in contact with us today by calling 01772 259 121 or send us an email by clicking here.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

Covid-19 has re-shaped the way organisations are approaching the recruitment process.

In recent years, the talent ‘war’ in finding the right candidate from those available was the main barrier to making a great hire.

Now, there is a very different problem.

Furlough, redundancy, restructuring, and businesses pivoting in response to the pandemic – all of these are happening right now, and it is affecting business output and ultimately, the success of your company.

Add into the mix the need to recruit for a critical position, and you have the perfect scenario which is likely to result in masking the ‘wrong’ hiring decision.

We’re increasingly seeing the need for our recruiting services become realised by companies who recognise that trying to ‘go it alone’ is potentially harmful to their business.

Today’s blog is about highlighting the hidden costs of trying to recruit, without a dedicated recruiter, in a post-pandemic world.

Let’s start with the logistical challenges of hiring in a market now full of candidates.

Dealing with the Influx Of Candidates and Applications

Recent data shows that the number of roles that have been made redundant from UK companies due to the pandemic is in the hundreds of thousands – of course, it’s still early days, and the full picture won’t be known for some time.

But for now, this means one thing – a significant rise in the number of candidates applying for each role; and it’s not just those who have sadly already been made redundant.

The unsettling nature of the pandemic has meant that more people are thinking about their future and making big career decisions, either out of fear or the realisation that their company hasn’t been flexible this year.

But an influx of applicants has caused companies with vacancies to become overwhelmed by candidates – not an ideal situation when you need to make the ‘right’ hire.

Sifting through hundreds of applicants costs time and time is money. I was reading in the Independent recently about a trainee accountancy role which received 3,272 applicants.

Sorting through this amount of applications would have been incredibly time-consuming, yet each application must be considered if you are to make the ‘right’ hire – it’s a logistical dilemma.

Even when you spend the time individually reviewing applications, go through the interview process and recruit someone you believe is perfect for the role – in the current market there’s no guarantee that they will stay – let’s look at why.

Predicting Candidate Intentions

As I mentioned earlier, lots of candidates are going through a mindset change – the pandemic has caused people to evaluate their careers and their lives.

There is still a lot of uncertainty, and middle and senior managers with key skills and experience will be wondering what their next career move should be. This can lead to them applying for a range of roles, without really acknowledging what their long-term plan is.

Additionally, with the level of redundancies that we have seen occurring in the UK, someone with management skills looking for work will be essentially looking for something ‘right now’ rather than something ‘right’ for them.

There is so much change happening in the market right now; how can you be sure that the person you hire isn’t just waiting for the next best thing? Middle and senior management employees are still trying to find their feet in an emerging marketplace; many will feel pressured into taking the first job that comes along – unbeknown to you this might be your vacancy.

When you work with an experienced recruiter, you can guarantee that the candidate is right for the role.

A specialist recruiter works with candidates to place them only in roles that they know are suited to the long-term aspirations of the individual; that’s why good recruiters focus on talent and personality matching rather than someone, anyone, to fill a vacant role.

Which leads onto the hidden cost of DIY recruitment most companies don’t appreciate.

The Cost of a Bad Hire

In pre-pandemic times, the cost of a ‘bad’ hire was always a risk, but now it is even more likely to occur and here is why.

Organisations are now dealing with multiple changes within the structure or the nature of their business.

From changed teams because of furlough and redundancy and the broader shifts in remote work, disruptions caused by the wrong hire are more likely to happen and could be one problem too many.

Hiring the wrong individual has the potential to cause problems in two ways –

• You hire someone who isn’t right for the role, or your organisation, and they cause a shift in the company culture, they are hard to manage, or they struggle with their position.
• You hire someone who you believe is right and they leave shortly afterwards, leaving you under-resourced and at the start of the recruitment process again.

Now, more than ever, you must find the ideal candidate to meet your criteria – an individual who is not only right for the role and your company culture but can also help your business grow in what is potentially a challenging time ahead.

Using a specialist recruiter is a logical and time tested way to avoid the common recruiting challenges I have mentioned here.

Working with a Recruiter for Your Post-Pandemic Hiring Decisions

Working with a recruiter is not the same as going it alone but with a fee – if this were the case, recruitment wouldn’t exist.

A specialist recruiter can proactively find the ‘right’ hire for your position, rather than the passive type of recruitment that is causing businesses to be overwhelmed with applicants and the barriers to finding the right hire that this presents.

In the current climate, which would you prefer –

Being swamped with potentially hundreds of applicants and not having the time to separate the suitable ones from the highly unsuitable, or not getting any suitable applicants at all?

Be presented with a shortlist of a few highly relevant candidates with the exact skills, experience and culture fit that you’re looking for?

We are a specialist recruitment company, and we can help you achieve this second scenario.

To find out how we can locate for you the candidates you’re looking for – get in touch with us here.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, Nursing, and Engineering appointments, on both a permanent and temporary basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

Hiring during a pandemic – it’s not something that many employers thought they would ever be doing.

After the imposed slowdown of the U.K. economy, businesses are more aware than ever of how critical it is to have the right team in place.

But the pandemic has also created the challenge of business planning – many organisations aren’t sure of what lies in store for the next few months, perhaps even years.

Protecting jobs has been a central focus of the fallout of the pandemic from Rishi Sunak, our Chancellor to Managing Directors across multiple Corporate and SME organisations.

As we now emerge into the ‘recovery’ stage, employers who have opportunities for candidates must decide on their hiring process to avoid being swamped by candidates and making the ‘right’ decisions from the many candidates available.

If you’re currently in the process of hiring temporary workers for your organisation over the next few months, this guide is for you.

Temp Workers for Your Post-Pandemic Organisation

Hiring temporary employees might not have been on your business plan at the start of the year, but the pandemic has forced many businesses into doing so, to protect themselves as we find a new normal.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures show that the number of temporary employees in the U.K. increased by 1.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the three months March-May 2020 compared to last year.

If you’re hiring temporary employees right now – you’re not alone. Delivery giant Hermes just announced they are to hire an additional 10,500 workers in the U.K. after the surge in new demand.

Temporary and contract workers are a smart choice for employers, as they offer more flexibility and less commitment during this business-critical time.

Let’s look first at applicant tracking systems and how these could be helping or hindering your temp hiring process.

Applicant Tracking Systems for Temp Workers

When hiring temp workers, speed is critical to the process – is it time you reviewed your applicant tracking system?

Many companies continue to use outdated tracking systems which could be harming your recruitment process. Now more than ever, you need to know that you can rely on your ATS and that it is helping, not damaging your recruiting efforts for temporary roles.

If your ATS is turning away more candidates than it is attracting, or if it is filtering out suitable candidates without your knowledge, you need to remedy this now.

Right now, there is likely to be an influx of applicants for roles, and you need to make sure your system isn’t missing the best applicants.

My top tips for evaluating your ATS are:

• Decide if the amount you are paying for the software is giving you a decent ROI.
• Consider if the features of your ATS are pulling in the temporary candidates you need right now.
• Are you able to accurately measure and track whether the ATS is providing you with quality candidates? If not, it might be time to consider a different recruiting method.

Next, let’s look at how current hiring practices are affecting the hiring of temporary employees.

Video Interviewing

Since the pandemic, hiring has gone digital, with many organisations and recruiters alike taking to video to interview candidates, at least for the first stages of the recruitment process.

The pandemic caused a spike of 67% more companies using video interviews to hire for critical roles, and this worked the other way too, with a 150% increase in candidates wanting to upgrade their digital CV with a video.

Video interviewing is a great – and safe – way to interview several candidates when you have multiple applicants for a temporary vacancy.

Set aside a day to conduct video interviews with your candidates, but with social distancing measures in place, safe face-to-face interviews can also now take place. Remember that an in-person interview is the best way to ascertain if a candidate is a good fit for your organisation, even if the role is only a temporary one.

Hiring Candidates with the Right Skills for Flexible Roles

Flexibility is going to be a key theme in businesses going forwards, and companies who fail to flex could find themselves in trouble.

When hiring temporary workers, you must think past the immediate role the candidate is applying for. Think about how much value your applicants can bring to the role – what other soft and hard skills do they have, and what experience do they have in different positions?

With an influx of candidates currently on the market, now is an excellent time to hire employees with great in-demand skills, think problem-solving, customer service, excellent communication skills, critical thinking, and creativity.

In a period of economic downturn, it can be easy for employers to forget about forward-planning, as they look to fill roles with the employees they need right now. When you hire with the future of your organisation in mind, you are protecting and strengthening your business for years to come.

This means hiring the very best from the available talent.

Finding the Best Talent for Your Temporary Roles

Before the pandemic, Clayton Recruitment specialised in finding the best available talent for temporary commercial roles, and that’s what we’re still doing today.

Our extensive network and connections can put you in touch with candidates, who can add value to your business now, in their temporary roles, and for when the time comes to make more permanent hiring decisions.

Remember, even though you are hiring for a temporary role, you should employ the same high standards in your hiring as you would for a permanent employee. As the current business environment is changing so quickly, you might need permanent employees faster than you think.

The cost of a wrong hire can be in the thousands; it can be costly in terms of time and effort too.

For peace of mind that you are hiring the very best temporary employees from the current pool, work with a recruiter with extensive experience in this field.

Clayton Recruitment offer a tailored recruitment service for each of your roles; we have the insight, network and market credibility to supply you with the temporary candidates you need right now – get in touch with us here to find out how.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial and Engineering appointments, on both a permanent and temporary basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

The COVID-19 outbreak has altered the dynamic in recruitment. While some industries have seen recruitment freezes, others are struggling to locate the employees they need.

With furloughs and some inevitable redundancies in various organisations and sectors, finance and accounting departments remain necessary throughout, which has contributed to a shortage of finance candidates.

With almost half of senior leaders in the financial services sector reporting high competition for finance roles, and now the added challenge of recruiting in the age of coronavirus – finding the right finance candidates is not an easy task.

Companies looking to hire and retain finance employees are struggling to locate the talent they need. Today, I want to discuss why, and what your organisation can do about it.

The Skills Shortage

A general shortage of candidates is the first problem organisations must contend with to hire their next Credit Controller or Payroll Assistant.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, employers were struggling to hire talent due to a skills gap. Data from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) Jobs Outlook Report found that between May and July 2019, 46 per cent of employers of permanent staff expressed concern over finding enough suitable candidates for their vacancies.

The skills shortage in the UK has increased year on year, as employers struggle to locate finance candidates for pivotal roles within their team.

Businesses Competing for the Best Finance Talent

The headlines we have seen recently about COVID-19 potentially damaging the UK job market do not tell the whole picture.

Shortly before the coronavirus hit the UK, chancellor Rishi Sunak boasted of a ‘national jobs miracle’. There was indeed a steady growth of jobs in many sectors, and tying in with the skills shortage, many employers were struggling to locate talented employees.

While the hospitality, retail and travel sectors have been affected, in many areas of the UK economy, there is a steady progression.

The coronavirus outbreak, however, has put an unprecedented strain on many finance departments, due to recent financial activity – let’s take a closer look.

Finance Departments Affected by Coronavirus

Finance departments have had to alter their regular schedules in line with new increased financial activity.

Cashflow forecasting, audits, tax, accounts assistants dealing with debts – all of these roles have been put under increased pressure due to changes caused by COVID-19.

Nearly 300,000 companies applied for CBILs (Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans) last month. Pausing and taking stock of all incomings and outgoings is not something which finance departments had planned to do at the start of the year. For this reason, many businesses are seeking extra help in finance departments right now.

There has also been a sharp increase in credit controller roles as businesses futures look uncertain and as some will inevitably close permanently. A quarter of all UK businesses have temporarily closed due to COVID-19, with half a million companies reporting that they are in ‘significant financial distress’.

For now, and the foreseeable future, recovery and debt collection will be a focus for many finance departments, with an increased need for employees within these roles.

For businesses that remain open, getting their finances in order after the significant changes that coronavirus has had is a difficult task, the scale of which we will not know for weeks to come.

Remote Recruitment

Finally, an additional problem that businesses have had to contend with is the physical difficulty with hiring at the moment.

Social distancing measures have meant that the face-to-face interviews have been halted and recruiting in general in lots of companies has ground to a halt – despite there being empty vital positions.

Many businesses are not equipped to conduct virtual recruiting, and in light of the recent situation, there hasn’t been time to set up a process.

If you are in need of finance candidates for a vacant role, and you haven’t got remote recruiting procedures in place – we can help. Get in touch with us here to find out about how our recruitment service is continuing and how it can help you recruit in lockdown.

How We Can Help

If you currently have a finance vacancy in your organisation and are struggling to navigate the current job market to find appropriate candidates, we can help.

Our team of experts are working remotely to help you find the finance candidates you need to help your organisation through this challenging time. If you have a finance vacancy you would like to discuss, get in touch with our team here today.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on both a permanent and temporary basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

In an increasingly competitive employment market, employers must keep up-to-date with the compensation, perks and benefits that the best talent is looking for, or risk losing them to your competitors.

I speak to candidates daily, and I hear the same incentives that are driving candidates away from specific workplaces and into others.

In this blog, I will share what the most talented candidates are looking for in their new employers right now – are you offering these incentives?

Flexible Work Schedules

We have seen a decrease in the typical 9-5 working schedule for some years now, with flexi-time gaining popularity in the ‘90s through to the present day.

But increasingly, employees are looking for even more flexibility from their employers.

Employees today – and especially millennial employees who now make up the majority of workplaces – want schedules that are flexible to their personal needs.

This is different to flexitime, as instead of being able to come into work anytime between 7-10 am and leave between 3-7 pm, they might ask for flexibility at other times. For example, a half-day finish when they have an appointment and be able to make the time up somewhere else or to come in later on days when they have to take their child to playgroup when their partner is busy.

As well as a flexible working arrangement, another popular demand among employees is a compressed working week – let me explain how this works.

Compressed Work Week

A compressed working schedule allows employees to work full time, putting in more of their hours on the days they choose, and allowing them to take time off elsewhere. For example, an employee might want to work four 10 hour days and have Fridays off.

Employees love this perk, as it allows them to have a better work-life balance, and studies show that working non-regular office hours improves productivity. Employees are more focused on their tasks, they have fewer interruptions, and it reduces fatigue which causes productivity and quality of work to slip.

Pension Scheme

We’re all living longer, and with government pensions not as reliable as they once were, employees are looking to their employers to provide them with an excellent pension scheme.

Employees highly value an employer who invests in an excellent pension scheme for them – it shows that they are invested in their future.

Working with a workplace pension provider to ensure that your employees are given a good rate on their pensions and that they can have as much or as little input as they want in the matter is a highly desirable bonus to many employees.

On-Site Amenities

Depending on the type of your workplace, there will be a range of amenities that you can provide for employees.

If your organisation is based somewhere away from shops and other conveniences, can you provide food for employees?

Some larger organisations can provide gyms, which is seen as one of the most sought-after perks; of course, this is not always possible and will depend on your size and budget. A good alternative is a chill-out zone, where employees can take time out to de-stress or have a quiet 5 minutes.

Even something as small as making your workspace bright, with plenty of natural light and indoor plants can make workplaces much more appealing to candidates.

Your goal should be to provide a workspace that your employees look forward to coming to, where they feel that they can thrive and work towards the shared goal of being healthy and happy.

Creating a positive place to work for your employees contributes to their overall wellbeing, which in turn increases productivity – it’s a win-win!

Finally, a great way to boost morale and give employees a little something that everyone enjoys – free social events!

Social Events

The solitary annual Christmas party doesn’t cut it anymore – many workplaces provide events for their employees throughout the year, and this is has become the mark of a great employer.

It doesn’t have to be monthly away-days at outdoor pursuit facilities; something as low-key as a shared team breakfast every few weeks, or making sure you celebrate birthdays in the office, makes team members feel valued.

Not only this, but research shows that employees who spend time together form stronger bonds which enables them to work better as a team when they are at work.

Your Benefits

How many of these benefits do you currently provide, in one form or another, to attract and retain the best employees?

The smartest organisations are always on the lookout for the most talented employees, and so attraction and retention should be something you are actively monitoring.

Hopefully, this article will have given you some inspiration on how you can make changes to transform your organisation into a talent magnet.

If you need further help or advice on how to recruit top employees, we can help. We work with organisations in the North West to help them find the talent they need to drive their business forwards – get in contact with us today to find out more.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on both a permanent and temporary basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

The start of a new year – how many business owners have been mulling over their plans for 2020 and the coming decade while they were at home celebrating with family? I know I was!

Here is the thing.

To achieve growth, to scale your business and to more importantly – increase revenue – what you need is a great team.

Some people go as far as saying that your team are as equally as important as your customers. No successful business has ever made it with a sub-standard team in place, and engaged employees are widely considered to be essential to higher efficiency, productivity and profits.

The cost of a bad hire, while expensive in monetary terms (estimates range from £12,000 to up to tens of thousands of pounds) will potentially send shockwaves which will be felt throughout your business.

And the smaller your company, the more impact making the wrong hire will have. Increased workloads and stress for current employees, low morale, decreased productivity…all of these put a strain on your business in a time when you were planning on growing.

So, with this in mind – what are you doing to ensure the hires that you make in 2020 will be the right ones to ensure your business grows and moves in the right direction?

Make 2020 the year that you put your recruitment process in the hands of the experts by working with a specialist recruiter; and here is how it will benefit your business.

Unrivalled Expertise

Unfortunately, many business owners who are not well acquainted with the world of recruitment don’t realise the vast difference in service they will receive between a specialist and a general recruiter.

This is understandable, as those who don’t live and breathe recruitment (unlike us!) have less of an understanding of what different recruiters provide within their service.

Most people don’t realise the extent of the knowledge gaps that a general recruiter can have, and the impact this will have on your eventual hire. Every employee in your organisation has a bearing on your success, and so each employee must be hired for the value that they can add to your business.

You can only achieve this by working with a recruiter who has an in-depth understanding of your sector, and sadly, this is not what a general recruiter will provide.

Local Knowledge

As well as extensive sector knowledge, one of the most crucial elements of working with a specialist recruiter is their geographical location. Can you expect your recruiter to understand current issues affecting your town or city when they are based elsewhere in the country?

Understanding, and having a good knowledge of the businesses in the area is an added benefit that people often overlook when choosing a recruiter.

If your specialist recruiter focuses their recruiting in one geographical area, this means that they can give a vastly improved service. Understanding your local area, the current economic and job climate, and the local candidate base is an added layer to your specialist recruiter’s service, which strengthens their hiring process.

The Skills Shortage

A recent survey of recruitment in the accounting and finance sector found that there is a current ‘moderate’ skills shortage in pivotal roles. Another accounting survey found that 95% of recruiting partners have struggled to find skilled accountants – does this sound familiar?

There is a distinct lack of talent in the active accounting candidate market. Firms who attempt to recruit by themselves, or use a general recruiter, are failing to interview candidates who possess the right skills and attitude.

A niche specialist will have access to the broader talent pool and will have contact with candidates that would not otherwise be looking to apply to your organisation.

An Efficient Process

How fast is your recruitment process? How many stages are there to ensure that the candidate is right for the role?

Or is it more of a relaxed affair that can take weeks depending on when the senior staff can get together? Is it more a case of hiring the person who can start the soonest? Your specialist recruiter will have every stage, and more importantly – the time frame already in mind.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from candidates, and sadly, one of the reasons many businesses miss out on great candidates is that ‘the hiring process took too long’.

The speed and efficiency of your hiring process is something which many business owners fail to recognise as essential to the candidates. Your specialist recruiter has the time to keep in touch with candidates at every step of the way, ensuring that they don’t switch off or worse – get approached by a rival company..

The Right Hire – First Time

Finally, but certainly not least – perhaps the most value-adding aspect of working with a specialist recruiter is the guarantee that the right hire will be made for your organisation.

As I have highlighted in this article, it is so essential to make the right hire, the first time around, and working with a specialist recruiter will ensure that this happens. It reduces the chance of being left for weeks (or months) of uncertainty as you attempt to carry out the recruitment process around your businesses daily tasks.

Or the worry that a sub-standard hire might be made, as a result of working with a recruiter who doesn’t understand your businesses and your sector-specific needs.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on both a permanent and temporary basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

If you would like to download our latest interview checklist, you can do so here.

How many millennials do you have in your organisation? If you’re not sure as to what constitutes a ‘millennial’ – it is generally accepted that this generation was born between 1981-1996, meaning that their current age is from their early 20s to late 30s.

As a Manager, it is vital to understand the needs of all generations in the workplace, but as of 2020, millennials will make up the most significant section of the UK workforce, so it pays to understand what they’re really looking for from their job.

Managers who understand what millennials want, and who offer them the opportunities that they’re looking for, will reap the benefits in the long run – these employees will stay and grow with your organisation rather than moving on in a year.

So, what exactly is it that millennials are looking for from their job?

Innovative Technology

Millennials have grown up around technology, and figuring out how to make the lives of everyone in the office a little easier is part of their DNA.

You might be thinking ‘, but we’re a small accountancy company, we don’t have any innovative tech’ – but this is not as complicated as it might sound.

Any office with a computer system will have processes in place – the organisation of files, the procedure of dealing with a client, even updating your website; these are all examples of conventional technology which millennials are adept at working with.

If your cloud filing system is a mess (or non-existent), if you have held back on upgrading your website or even your internet speed, these can all put millennials off from wanting to join your company.

They are looking for forward-thinking and innovative workspaces; however, it isn’t all about how futuristic your office is, it is more a state of mind – which brings me onto my next point.

Collaboration and Flexibility

The millennial workforce is known for their love of collaborative working, of pushing boundaries and of rejecting the style of work where you basically get your head down, do as the Manager says and don’t ask any questions – this is seen as a ‘baby boomer’ trait, and is now less common in the world of work.

When you harbour and encourage an atmosphere of collaboration and shared knowledge, this is an attractive trait to high-performing millennials. Equal partaking makes millennials (and indeed employees of all generations) feel that they are valued, rather than simply a ‘cog’ in the wheel, and gives them a sense of purpose – let me explain this in more detail.

Purpose

Millennials want to undertake work which gives them a sense of purpose. Whether that’s on updating a mortgage administration process, taking ownership of their bookkeeping role, or doing an excellent job of pulling together contracts for your contracts administrator role.

Older millennials might be old enough to have experienced the world of work before open-plan offices and when being an ‘angry Manager’ was still seen as a reliable leadership quality – not any more.

The workplace is a much more open and forward-thinking place these days, with companies of all sizes and in all sectors striving to show their clients and their employees that they are purpose-led. A recent Forbes article even highlighted that purpose-driven companies evolve faster than others.

So, to attract the best millennial talent, make sure your company not only has a mission and a vision statement but that all employees are committed to the cause. If you are an accountancy firm who has honesty and customer service at the heart of your ethos – highlight this to your millennial candidates; it will make them consider working for your business even more seriously.

To Be Developed

Lastly, I want to talk a little bit about millennials and their long-term career plans. Many employers wrongly believe that this generation of workers are ‘job-hoppers’ and they have gained a reputation for being more likely to leave their jobs than their boomer predecessors.

But how true it this?

In reality, millennials are actually no more likely to leave their job than any other employee of different age.

Yes, it is true that the workforce, in general, changes their jobs more often now than previously, but this is the same across all ages. The average employee now changes their position up to 12 times throughout their career, but this is not because they are flighty. It happens because the idea of a ‘job for life’ is not in practice anymore, because of the unstable economic times of the last ten years in the UK and because there is more choice for employees.

A recent study on millennials in the workplace found that the number one factor that they consider before taking a new job is if they will be trained and developed in their role.

Millennials want to develop and grow with your company – they will be put off any role which does not offer scope for growth, and this is not just for the increase in salary; they want to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes from personal growth and pride in doing their job increasingly well.

Finally

Do you need help locating quality candidates for your finance or accounting vacancies? We work with accounting talent for roles in the North West and have been recruiting in this sector for 30 years – get in contact with our team today to find out more.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on both a permanent and temporary basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.